Content is what matters

Image information: The National Museum of Korea offers an application for viewers to have a enjoyable museum viewing Exhibit contents using augmented reality (AR), experiential animation, video, etc.

The Korean government has been paying keen attention to the VR technology, tapping it as the next growth engine for Korea.

The two control towers governing the VR industry ― the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIFP) fostering the technology and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism developing the content ― have been announcing a slew of policies.

The MSIFP announced last week the Digital Content Flagship Project, which will inject 185 billion Won [ca. 145 billion Euro] in aspiring businesses to foster the convergence between culture and information technology, notably virtual reality and a 270-degree Cinerama-like ScreenX by 2018.

“A new lens called VR is changing the whole way of looking at the world,” said Choi Jae-you, second vice minister of science and future planning. “The VR industry, the annual growth of which is estimated at over 10 percent and will reach $150 billion market by 2020, is still in its infancy.”

To gain the upper hand in the industry, the growth of which can be shared with other industries, Choi said all the players should gather forces to develop content, platforms, networks and devices together.

On Wednesday, the Culture Creation and Convergence Belt under the wing of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism opened the Creative Economy Leader (CEL) Academy that aims to nurture talented people who can make killer VR content.

The academy will financially support those creators who will carry out projects with professors and field experts who possess convergence-oriented creative knowledge.

The ministry said that developing content is a prerequisite to bringing in the VR age.

“As much as we need more affordable VR devices, we need rich VR content. Not just killer content, either, but a vast amount of content created by those in diverse areas,” said Im Sang-kuk, an analyst at Hyundai Securities. “VR will grow hand in hand with AR in the end. Because, they are in the early stages, we should approach them from a long term perspective.”

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